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The Science, Microbes & Health Podcast 

This podcast covers emerging topics and challenges in the science of probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics and fermented foods. This is the podcast of The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotic (ISAPP), a nonprofit scientific organization dedicated to advancing the science of these fields.

The history of ISAPP, with Drs. Glenn Gibson, Mary Ellen Sanders and Irene Lenoir-Wijnkoop

Episode summary:

In this episode, the ISAPP podcast hosts talk about the history of the ISAPP organization with the organization’s three co-founders: Glenn Gibson, Mary Ellen Sanders and Irene Lenoir-Wijnkoop. The three guests recount the origins of ISAPP and the state of probiotic and prebiotic science 20 years ago when the organization was founded. They speak about some of the successes and challenges they encountered along the way, and highlight what they see as some of the key achievements of ISAPP.

Key topics from this episode:

• The origin of the idea for ISAPP back in 1999: an organization dedicated to the science of pro- and prebiotics.
• The annual meeting proved a key mechanism to gathering the multi-disciplinary scientists together to talk about and advance the science.
• How ISAPP walks the line between receiving funding from industry members yet protecting scientific credibility.
• The value that ISAPP has provided to industry members and the academic scientific community over the years.
• How research in the field developed in the last 20 years and the questions that remain unanswered.
• How industry members understood the importance of science 20 years ago and still do today, respecting the line between science and marketing.
• Challenges from the last 20 years and where the field is going.

 

About Irene Lenoir-Wijnkoop:

Irene Lenoir-Wijnkoop is affiliated with the Utrecht University, specialized in public health nutrition and she provides independent consultancy services in related areas. She acts as associate editor in the Drugs Outcomes Research & Policies section of Frontiers. Through her passion for tackling preventable food-related diseases, which jeopardize healthcare resources, societies and human equity, she pioneered the field of nutrition economics.

After a first experience in clinical nutrition, she successively held assignments at the Dutch and the French subsidiaries of The Upjohn Company. When food industries initiated clinical research activities, she joined management and executive positions at the Danone Group. Besides her responsibilities, she got actively involved in ILSI Europe, in many international societies and advisory boards, primarily in the field of probiotics. She co-conceived ISAPP by enabling the first -seminal- meeting in 1999 in New York. In 2010 she was awarded with the Elie Metchnikoff Prize of Recognition.

 

About Mary Ellen Sanders:

Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD serves as the Executive Science Officer for the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics. She is also a consultant in the area of probiotic microbiology (www.mesanders.com). She is the current chair of the United States Pharmacopeia’s Probiotics Expert Panel, was a member of the working group convened by the FAO/WHO that developed guidelines for probiotics, and co-chairs the World Gastroenterology Organisation Guidelines Committee for practice guidelines for the use of probiotics and prebiotics for gastroenterologists. She lives in Colorado with her husband, where she enjoys her 2 grandchildren, hiking and riding her aging Morgan horse.

 

About Glenn Gibson:

Born in an ambulance parked on a roundabout outside Littlethorpe Maternity Hospital near Sunderland, UK (his dad fainted). Failed scientist at school – a trait he has successfully continued to this very day. Has poked around in people’s faeces for over 30 years and as a result, has published over 500 research papers but do not waste your time reading any of them, as you will learn nothing. Before that he did a PhD on sediment microbiology and learnt a lot about what the great population (or poopulation) of Dundee flush down their toilets. 

He has supervised over 80 PhD students and 40 postdocs, who all said he was an absolute pleasure to work with and they wished their projects had lasted 10 times as long as they did. He is a compulsive fantasist. He thinks h-factor is a hat size. Has not done a day’s work in the last decade, largely because he spends all his time reading refereeing requests from journals he has never heard of, or grant bodies wanting reviews after spending decades bouncing every single one of his*, or conference organisers asking him to travel across the world (at his own expense) to give a talk or chair a session on anything whatsoever. Helped Mary Ellen, Irene and Gregor found the organisation most people call EYE-SAPP.